Implications for
Practice
What
are some of the practical implications of all of the above? First, to restate
the obvious, we should not be embarrassed by the rampant theological and halakhic
pluralism that characterizes our movement. It is not only inevitable but even
praiseworthy. Nothing in this attempt to articulate a theology for Conservative
Judaism should be taken as vitiating this pluralistic impulse. What we have
tried to address, here, is rather the need for a metatheological
justification for a pluralistic approach to issues of belief and practice.
Second,
our stance emphasizes a critically open or positive attitude to the entire
non-Jewish world, out of the conviction that not only the Jewish community, but
even the outside world will be enriched thereby.[1] Just as
our ancestors "Judaized" institutions from
the surrounding cultures (that is precisely the point of our study of the
influence of ancient Near-Eastern religions on the Bible), just as Maimonides
incorporated logic, physics, mathematics, and metaphysics into the curriculum
of the authentic Jewish believer, so must we create our own synthesis or midrash out of the best of what we have received
from our past and the best of the surrounding world. This kind of
"assimilation" is precisely the process that Bickerman
contends was undertaken by the Pharisees who absorbed a wealth of foreign
influences into Judaism, once their poison had been drawn and once the
community felt internally strong enough to open itself to the outside world.[2] Note
that Bickerman's point is that this process alone
made it possible for our ancestors to withstand the onslaught of a rich and
powerful foreign culture.
From Toward a Theology for Conservative Judaism by Neil
Gillman in Conservative
Judaism, Vol. 37(1), Fall1983 @1983 The Rabbinical
Assembly
NOTES
[1] I am grateful to my colleague, Professor Joseph Lukinsky
for pointing out that a stance of openness to the outside world enriches not
only the Jewish community but the larger society as well.
[2] From Ezra to
the Last of the Maccabees, p. 181. Gerson
Cohen's "The Blessings of Assimilation in Jewish History,"